Building Materials

Aris J. Smith, who supplied Boca Raton contractors and home owners with hardware and building materials for 26 years, died on Monday of cardiac arrest. He was 71. In 1957, Mr. Smith and Clyde De Shields founded Smith & De Shields Inc., said his son, Richard of Durham, N.C. Mr. Smith served as president of the firm at 165 NW 20th St. until his retirement five years ago. Mr. Smith also became a charter member of the Boca Raton Rotary Club in 1957. He served for the next two years as president of the club and was named a Paul Harris Fellow.

It's a unique partnership between business and a Florida nonprofit: retailers provide building materials and housewares to a warehouse that distributes the items free or at cut-rate prices to other nonprofits, churches or schools. Pompano Beach-based Morningday Community Solutions is expanding next month into a 10,000-square-foot space to handle more donations, from floor tiles to beds, said founder Greg Bales. The charitable venture grew out of Bales' decision years ago to give 20 percent of his real-estate company profits back to the community, guided by the conviction that "you become successful by helping others.

MIRAMAR -- A 30-year-old Miramar man was arrested on Sunday for dumping building materials near the intersection of County Line and Flamingo roads. The dump truck was filled with building materials and a large amount of the debris was found on the ground by the vehicle. The truck was taken to the Police Department for possible seizure.

Deerfield Beach recycles Styrofoam Styrofoam is now accepted at the Deerfield Beach Residential Recycling Drop-Off Center, 401 SW Fourth St. The center, which also accepts material from nonresidents, is open Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to noon. Styrofoam peanuts can be bagged. City businesses can also arrange to have their Styrofoam picked up for recycling. For more information, call 954-480-4454. Styrofoam processing center Edge Logistics Group, a polymer recovery center, has opened at 3129 NW 25th Ave., Pompano Beach.

COCONUT CREEK - About $1,450 worth of building materials was stolen from a construction site in the 3600 block of Northwest 21st Street, between 2 p.m. on April 25 and 8 a.m. on April 27, according to a police report.

DAVIE -- A fire in a dumping pit was brought under control on Saturday night, the day after the blaze was reported, fire officials said on Sunday. The fire, in the 5000 block of Oaks Road, started on Friday in a 20-foot-deep pit filled with wood, tree clippings and old building materials, a fire official said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation on Sunday, officials said.

One of South Florida`s oldest corporate chairmen finally has agreed to sell his company -- to one of Australia`s oldest companies. Marshall E. "Doc" Rinker Sr., 83-year-old chairman of Rinker Materials Corp. in West Palm Beach, announced on Thursday he has agreed to sell his company to CSR Ltd., an Australian concern. The sales price was not disclosed. CSR, a public company founded in 1855, has interests in sugar mills and refineries and in building materials. The company has been actively acquiring North American companies, particularly in the building sector.

Thousands of dollars worth of tools, construction equipment and building materials were stolen from several construction sites during the Memorial Day weekend, according to police reports. At a construction site near Seacrest Boulevard and Hypoluxo Road, a $3,000 trailer and $7,000 in tools were stolen, reports show. An undetermined amount of tools and building materials were taken from two sites on the 7700 block of West Camino Real near Boca Raton, according to reports. At a construction site at Boca Greens on U.S. 441, thieves took windows, doors and a kitchen sink worth a total of $750, reports show.

The City Commission on Wednesday voted to give $300,000 in federal grant money to Habitat for Humanity to build 30 houses in the city. The money will be used by the city to give land to the national nonprofit organization. Habitat builds single-family houses throughout the city for low-income residents who would otherwise not be able to own homes. The city had been building homes for low-to-moderate income families through a program of its own, but City Manager George Hanbury II said Habitat could build the homes faster than the city could.

Ruth Rales Jewish Family Services is planning a 12,000-square- foot senior community center adjacent to Temple Anshei Shalom west of Delray Beach. A groundbreaking ceremony is set for Nov. 12, and the center is slated to be completed by late 2010. "An estimated 8,500 seniors annually will receive a broad range of direct services at the center," said Arnold Saltzman, the group's CEO. Services will include case management, mental health services, presentations and health fairs, a kosher food pantry and congregate meal program, educational programs, Holocaust survivors' assistance, volunteer programs and more, he said.

As they look to embark on several projects, city staffers plan to go back before the City Commission to request more money in the budget. Some of the reasons: The lack of building materials because of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, as well as a construction industry so busy that few companies are available to do the work. Nine projects in the planning stages are expected to cost taxpayers almost $26 million, instead of the $13 million initially estimated. Now, city officials are expected as early as next week to ask commissioners for more money for one of the projects, the Tamarac Sports Complex.

Hoping to sign a contract guaranteeing preconstruction prices for a single-family home or condominium? That might not be so easy anymore. The rising cost of building materials is forcing some developers to offer reservations rather than actual contracts, a housing expert said Thursday at the 62nd annual International Builders' Show in Orlando. Reservations allow buyers to tie up the units while giving developers the option of increasing prices before construction begins, said Robert Koch, a director at Fugleberg Koch Architects in Winter Park.

Some home builders are hoarding lumber. Others are considering switching from wood components to steel frame construction and trusses. All builders, however, agree that South Florida will feel the effects of Hurricane Katrina in rising prices for building materials -- costs that will ultimately be passed along to buyers of new homes. The effort to rebuild in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, where Katrina damaged or destroyed nearly half a million homes, is expected to cause a surge in demand for building materials that will drive prices up in South Florida as well as the rest of the nation.

With some critical building materials already hard to come by in South Florida, industry experts are predicting that prices and supplies will be affected further by Hurricane Katrina. "There will be an effect locally," said Richard Horton, executive vice president of The Green Cos. Inc. in Miami and the president of the Builders Association of South Florida. "The fuel oil prices are going to add to the cost of transportation, which is a big component of all the materials we get in South Florida, not to mention the fact that a lot of these materials will be heading in the direction of New Orleans and Mississippi for reconstruction after things settle down."

We recently attended the annual International Builders Show presented by the National Association of Home Builders. We were among more than 100,000 attendees from around the world who converged on Orlando for a peek at the latest in building products, technology and allied services. Billed as the world's largest building industry event, there were about 1,600 exhibitors who came out to showcase their wares. Appliances, plumbing fixtures, lighting, cabinets, counters, decking, windows, doors, siding, roofing, fireplaces, building materials and tools are just a small sampling of the more than 300 product and service categories represented.

Deerfield Beach recycles Styrofoam Styrofoam is now accepted at the Deerfield Beach Residential Recycling Drop-Off Center, 401 SW Fourth St. The center, which also accepts material from nonresidents, is open Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to noon. Styrofoam peanuts can be bagged. City businesses can also arrange to have their Styrofoam picked up for recycling. For more information, call 954-480-4454. Styrofoam processing center Edge Logistics Group, a polymer recovery center, has opened at 3129 NW 25th Ave., Pompano Beach.

A man accused of taking more than $10,000 from an 85-year-old woman for storm-damage repairs that he never completed was behind bars Wednesday, according to an arrest report. Leonardo M. Umpierres, 39, of Port St. Lucie, faces a felony charge of contracting without a license after allegedly cashing two checks totaling $10,756 from the woman. The victim told a St. Lucie County sheriff's investigator that she hired Umpierres to repair storm damage to her home on Isabella Lane. She said Umpierres cashed a $6,319 check on Nov. 1, and a second check for $4,437 on Dec. 6. "During this time, she had been asking Mr. Umpierres for a contract and a copy of his contracting licenses," the report states.

Rinker Materials Corp. may be owned by an Australian company, but the bulk of its business, top management and employee base is in North America, with West Palm Beach as its U.S. headquarters. Now, Rinker is seeking a greater presence through the U.S. stock market. The building materials company, the third largest in North America, expects to be listed later this month on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts, a dollar-denominated certificate that represents ownership of shares in a non-U.